New England -- Religious life and customs; New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775; Sunday
Pleasant it is to think of the church appearance of the Puritan goodmen and
goodwives. Priscilla Alden in a Quakeress' drab gown would doubtless have
been pleasant to behold, but Priscilla garbed in a "blew Mohere peticote,"
a "tabby bodeys with red livery cote," and an "immoderate great rayle" with
"Slashes," with a laced neckcloth or cross cloth around her fair neck, and
a scarlet "whittle" over all this motley finery; with a "outwork quoyf or
ciffer" (New England French for coiffure) with "long wings" at the side,
and a silk or tiffany hood on her drooping head,--Priscilla in this attire
were pretty indeed.
Nor did sober John Alden and doughty Miles Standish lack for variety in
their dress; besides their soldier's garb, their sentinel's armor, they
had a vast variety of other attire to choose from; they could select their
head-wear from "redd knitt capps" or "monmouth capps" or "black hats lyned
at the browes with leather." They could have a "sute" of "dublett and hose
of leather lyned with oyled-skin-leather," fastened with hooks and eyes
instead of buttons; or one of "hampshire kerseys lyned." They could have
"mandillions" (whatever they may have been) "lyned with cotton," and
"wast-coats of greene cotton bound about with red tape," and breeches of
oiled leather and leathern drawers (I do not know whether these leathern
drawers were under-garments or leathern draw-strings at the knees of the
breeches). They could wear "gloves of sheeps or calfs leather" or of kid,
and fine gold belts, and "points" at the knees. In fact, the invoices of
goods to the earliest settlers show that they had a choice of various
materials for garments, including "gilford and gedleyman, holland and
lockerum and buckerum, fustian, canvass, linsey-woolsey, red ppetuna,
cursey, cambrick, calico-stuff, loom-work, Dutch serges, and English
jeans"--enough for diversity, surely. Sad-colored mantles the goodmen wore,
but their doublets were scarlet, and with their green waistcoats and red
caps, surely the Puritan men were sufficiently gayly dressed to suit any
fancy save that of a cavalier. Later in the history of the colony, when
hooped petticoats and laced hoods and mantles, and long, embroidered gloves
fastened with horsehair "glove tightens," and when velvet coats and satin
breeches and embroidered waistcoats, gold lace, sparkling buckles, and
cocked hats with full bottomed wigs were worn, the gray, sombre old
meeting-house blossomed like a tropical forest, and vied with the worldly
Church of England in gay-garbed church attendants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account